This document discusses virtual patients (VPs), which are interactive computer simulations used in healthcare education to allow learners to take on the role of healthcare professionals. VPs help develop clinical skills and allow students to practice in a safe environment. There are different types of VPs, including artificial patients, physical simulators, and case studies. Factors to consider when developing VPs include the intended users, what users should achieve, whether individuals or groups will use it, development assistance needed, and cost versus benefit. The document also describes how the Royal Veterinary College is capturing veterinary case details in PowerPoint templates for conversion to linear VPs to use in teaching.

1. Virtual Patients 1 st March 2011 NOVICE C Trace BVetMed MRCVS eMedia Unit

2. What is a Virtual Patient (VP)? An interactive computer simulation of a patient that is used in health care education (AAMC 2008)

3. Why use VP’s? Virtual patients allow the learner to take the role of a health care professional and develop clinical skills such as making diagnoses and therapeutic decisions The use of virtual patient programmes is increasing in healthcare education, partly in response to increasing demands on health care professionals and education of students but also because they allow opportunity for students to practice in a safe environment

4. Types of VP Artificial patient Physical simulator Case Studies

5. How did it come to this? The Haptic Cow Sarah Baillie MRCVS Most Innovative Teacher of the Year 2009 RCUK Women of Outstanding Achievement in SET 2010 Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellow 2010

6. Ways of navigating through a case study: Linear Branching Exploratory ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CASUS CAMPUS, Xerte OpenLabyrinth DecisionSim WebSP

7. Factors to consider when developing a VP Who is your end user? Who is required to assist in the development of the VP? What do you want your user to achieve with the VP? Do you want the user to work independently, or in a group? How many people will use the VP? Does a tutor need to be present? And many more….. Cost: benefit ratio!

8. eCases at the RVC Currently case details are recorded and captured by groups of students on rotations into Powerpoint templates. They include text, images, audio clips and videos. The best of these case records are repurposed into linear VP’s, which are published on VetConnect. These are going to be used for Directed Learning (DL) sessions for the 3 rd and 4 th year BVetMed. In the future these eCases will be made into branching VP’s for independent student use

9. eCases survey 78% of students think eCases gave them a better understanding of their cases 66% of students think eCases helped them better appreciate how to approach a case The second half of the survey assessed how effective/useful eCases were after they had been posted onto VetConnect as linear Virtual Patients: 72% think eCases helped them understand a similar case 59% think eCases were useful for revision In addition: 87% would recommend looking at completed eCases to other students; 77% would have liked to have been exposed to completed eCases before rotations , many saying in 3 rd and 4 th year teaching.